Greta, I gather, was regarded by her family as an admirable stooge. Competent, able to make all arrangements with the utmost efficiency, subservient no doubt and charming to the stepmother, the uncle and a few odd cousins who seemed to be knocking about. Ellie had no fewer than three lawyers at her command, from what she let fall every now and then. She was surrounded by a vast financial network of bankers and lawyers and the administrators of trust funds. It was a world that I just got glimpses of every now and then, mostly from things that Ellie let fall carelessly in the course of conversation. It didnt occur to her, naturally, that I wouldnt know about all those things. She had been brought up in the midst of them and she naturally concluded that the whole world knew what they were and how they worked and all the rest of it.
In fact, getting glimpses of the special peculiarities of each others lives were unexpectedly what we enjoyed most in our early married life. To put it quite crudely and I did put things crudely to myself, for that was the only way to get to terms with my new life the poor dont really know how the rich live and the rich dont know how the poor live, and to find out is really enchanting to both of them. Once I said uneasily:
Look here, Ellie, is there going to be an awful sche-mozzle[33] over all this, over our marriage, I mean?
Ellie considered without, I noticed, very much interest.
Oh yes, she said, theyll probably be awful. And she added, I hope you wont mind too much.
I wont mind why should I? But you, will they bully you over it?
I expect so, said Ellie, but one neednt listen. The point is that they cant do anything.
But theyll try?
Oh yes, said Ellie. Theyll try. Then she added thoughtfully, Theyll probably try and buy you off.
Buy me off?
Dont look so shocked, said Ellie, and she smiled, a rather happy little girls smile. It isnt put exactly like that. Then she added, They bought off Minnie Thompsons first, you know.
Minnie Thompson? Is that the one they always call the oil heiress?
Yes, thats right. She ran off and married a life guard off the beach.
Look here, Ellie, I said uneasily, I was a life guard at Littlehampton once.
Oh, were you? What fun! Permanently?
No, of course not. Just one summer, thats all.
I wish you wouldnt worry, said Ellie.
What happened about Minnie Thompson?
They had to go up to 200,000 dollars, I think, said Ellie, he wouldnt take less. Minnie was man-mad[34] and really a half-wit[35], she added.
You take my breath away, Ellie, I said. Ive not only acquired a wife, Ive got something I can trade for solid cash at any time.
Thats right, said Ellie. Send for a high-powered lawyer and tell him youre willing to talk turkey. Then he fixes up the divorce and the amount of alimony, said Ellie, continui ng my education. My stepmothers been married four times, she added, and shes made quite a lot out of it. And then she said, Oh, Mike, dont look so shocked.
The funny thing is that I was shocked. I felt a priggish distaste for the corruption of modern society in its richer phases. There had been something so little-girl-like about Ellie, so simple, almost touching in her attitude that I was astonished to find how well up she was in worldly affairs and how much she took for granted. And yet I knew that I was right about her fundamentally. I knew quite well the kind of creature that Ellie was. Her simplicity, her affection, her natural sweetness. That didnt mean she had to be ignorant of things. What she did know and took for granted was a fairly limited slice of humanity.[36] She didnt know much about my world, the world of scrounging for jobs, of racecourse gangs and dope gangs, the rough and tumble dangers of life, the sharp-Aleck flashy type that I knew so well from living amongst them all my life. She didnt know what it was to be brought up decent and respectable but always hard up for money, with a mother who worked her fingers to the bone in the name of respectability, determining that her son should do well in life. Every penny scrimped for[37] and saved, and the bitterness when your gay carefree son threw away his chances or gambled his all on a good tip for the 3.30.
She enjoyed hearing about my life as much as I enjoyed hearing about hers. Both of us were exploring a foreign country.
Looking back I see what a wonderfully happy life it was, those early days with Ellie. At the time I took them for granted and so did she. We were married in a registry office in Plymouth. Guteman is not an uncommon name. Nobody, reporters or otherwise, knew the Guteman heiress was in England. There had been vague paragraphs in papers occasionally, describing her as in Italy or on someones yacht. We were married in the Registrars office with his clerk and a middle-aged typist as witnesses. He gave us a serious little harangue on the serious responsibilities of married life, and wished us happiness. Then we went out, free and married. Mr and Mrs Michael Rogers! We spent a week in a seaside hotel and then we went abroad. We had a glorious three weeks travelling about wherever the fancy took us and no expense spared.
We went to Greece and we went to Florence, and to Venice and lay on the Lido, then to the French Riviera and then to the Dolomites. Half the places I forget the names of now. We took planes or chartered a yacht or hired large and handsome cars. And while we enjoyed ourselves, Greta, I gathered from Ellie, was still on the Home Front doing her stuff.
Travelling about in her own way, sending letters and forwarding all the various post-cards and letters that Ellie had left with her.
Therell be a day of reckoning, of course, said Ellie. Theyll come down on us like a cloud of vultures. But we might as well enjoy ourselves until that happens.
What about Greta? I said. Wont they be rather angry with her when they find out?
Oh, of course, said Ellie, but Greta wont mind. Shes tough.
Mightnt it stop her getting another job?
Why should she get another job? said Ellie. Shell come and live with us.
No! I said.
What do you mean, no, Mike?
We dont want anyone living with us, I said.
Greta wouldnt be in the way, said Ellie, and shed be very useful. Really, I dont know what Id do without her. I mean, she manages and arranges everything.
I frowned. I dont think Id like that. Besides, we want our own house our dream house, after all, Ellie we want it to ourselves.
Yes, said Ellie, I know what you mean. But all the same She hesitated. I mean, it would be very hard on Greta not to have anywhere to live. After all, shes been with me, done everything for me for four years now. And look how shes helped me to get married and all that.
I wont have her butting in between us all the time! But shes not like that at all, Mike. You havent even met her yet.
No. No, I know I havent but but its nothing to do with, oh with liking her or not. We want to be by ourselves, Ellie.
No. No, I know I havent but but its nothing to do with, oh with liking her or not. We want to be by ourselves, Ellie.
Darling Mike, said Ellie softly.
We left it at that for the moment.
During the course of our travels we had met Santonix. That was in Greece. He had been in a small fishermans cottage near the sea. I was startled by how ill he looked, much worse than when I had seen him a year ago. He greeted both Ellie and myself very warmly.
So youve done it, you two, he said.
Yes, said Ellie, and now were going to have our house built, arent we?
Ive got the drawings for you here, the plans, he said to me. Shes told you, hasnt she, how she came and ferreted me out and gave me her commands, he said, choosing the word thoughtfully.
Oh! not commands, said Ellie. I just pleaded.
You know weve bought the site? I said.
Ellie wired and told me. She sent me dozens of photographs.
Of course youve got to come and see it first, said Ellie. You mightnt like the site.
I do like it.
You cant really know till youve seen it.
But I have seen it, child. I flew over five days ago. I met one of your hatchet-faced lawyers there the English one.
Mr Crawford?
Thats the man. In fact, operations have already started: clearing the ground, removing the ruins of the old house, foundations drains When you get back to England Ill be there to meet you. He got out his plans then and we sat talking and looking at our house to be. There was even a rough water-colour sketch of it as well as the architectural elevations and plans.
Do you like it, Mike?
I drew a deep breath.
Yes, I said, thats it. Thats absolutely it.
You used to talk about it enough, Mike. When I was in a fanciful mood I used to think that piece of land had laid a spell upon you. You were a man in love with a house that you might never own, that you might never see, that might never even be built.
But its going to be built, said Ellie. Its going to be built, isnt it?
If God or the devil wills it, said Santonix. It doesnt depend on me.
Youre not any any better? I asked doubtfully.
Get it into your thick head. I shall never be better. Thats not on the cards.
Nonsense, I said. People are finding cures for things all the time. Doctors are gloomy brutes. They give people up for dead and then the people laugh and cock a snook[38] at them and live for another fifty years.
I admire your optimism, Mike, but my malady isnt one of that kind. They take you to hospital and give you a change of blood and back you come again with a little leeway of life, a little span of time gained. And so on, getting weaker each time.
You are very brave, said Ellie.
Oh no, Im not brave. When a thing is certain theres nothing to be brave about. All you can do is find your consolation.
Building houses?
No, not that. Youve less vitality all the time, you see, and therefore building houses becomes more difficult, not easier. The strength keeps giving out. No. But there are consolations. Sometimes very queer ones.
I dont understand you, I said.
No, you wouldnt, Mike. I dont know really that Ellie would. She might. He went on, speaking not so much to us as to himself. Two things run together, side by side. Weakness and strength. The weakness of fading vitality and the strength of frustrated power. It doesnt matter, you see, what you do now! Youre going to die anyway. So you can do anything you choose. Theres nothing to deter you, theres nothing to hold you back. I could walk through the streets of Athens shooting down every man or woman whose face I didnt like. Think of that.
The police could arrest you just the same, I pointed out.
Of course they could. But what could they do? At the most take my life. Well my lifes going to be taken by a greater power than the law in a very short time. What else could they do? Send me to prison for twenty thirty years? Thats rather ironical, isnt it, there arent twenty or thirty years for me to serve. Six months one year eighteen months at the utmost. Theres nothing anyone can do to me. So in the span thats left to me I am king. I can do what I like. Sometimes its a very heady thought. Only only, you see, theres not much temptation because theres nothing particularly exotic or lawless that I want to do.
After we had left him, as we were driving back to Athens, Ellie said to me:
Hes an odd person. Sometimes you know, I feel frightened of him.
Frightened, of Rudolf Santonix why?
Because he isnt like other people and because he has a I dont know a ruthlessness and an arrogance about him somewhere. And I think that he was trying to tell us, really, that knowing hes going to die soon has increased his arrogance. Supposing, said Ellie, looking at me in an animated way, with almost a rapt and emotional expression on her face, supposing he built us our lovely castle, our lovely house on the cliffs edge there in the pines, supposing we were coming to live in it. There he was on the doorstep and he welcomed us in and then
Well, Ellie?
Then supposing he came in after us, he slowly closed the doorway behind us and sacrificed us there on the threshold. Cut our throats or something.
You frighten me, Ellie. The things you think of!
The trouble with you and me, Mike, is that we dont live in the real world. We dream of fantastic things that may never happen.
Dont think of sacrifices in connection with Gipsys Acre.
Its the name, I suppose, and the curse upon it.
There isnt any curse, I shouted. Its all nonsense. Forget it.
That was in Greece.
Chapter 10
It was, I think, the day after that. We were in Athens. Suddenly, on the steps of the Acropolis Ellie ran into people that she knew. They had come ashore from one of the Hellenic cruises. А woman of about thirty-five detached herself from the group and rushed along the steps to Ellie exclaiming:
Why, I never did. Its really you, Ellie Guteman? Well, what are you doing here? Id no idea. Are you on a cruise?
No, said Ellie, just staying here.
My, but its lovely to see you. Hows Cora, is she here?
No, Cora is at Salzburg I believe.
Well, well. The woman was looking at me and Ellie said quietly, Let me introduce Mr Rogers, Mrs Bennington.
How dyou do. How long are you here for?
Im leaving tomorrow, said Ellie.
Oh dear! My, Ill lose my party if I dont go, and I just dont want to miss a word of the lecture and the descriptions. They do hustle one a bit, you know. Im just dead beat at the end of the day. Any chance of meeting you for a drink?
Not today, said Ellie, were going on an excursion.
Mrs Bennington rushed off to rejoin her party. Ellie, who had been going with me up the steps of the Acropolis, turned round and moved down again.
That rather settles things, doesnt it? she said to me.
What does it settle?
Ellie did not answer for a minute or two and then she said with a sigh, I must write tonight.